i am so excited to be home for Easter!!! three months away from my family is about as much as i can handle. not to mention it’s supposed to snow in pittsburgh on thursday and i’m quite willing to miss out on that…

this weekend was a blast. nick came over on saturday and we went to lunch at sun penang, a newish thai restaurant in squirrel hill. we sat outside watching the people go by: young families with armloads of books from the library down the street, twenty-somethings with yoga bags slung over their shoulders. i had a delicious green curry with coconut milk over rice, and nick had a chicken, rice, and vegetable dish that was really quite good. our meals came with a spring roll and salad for only $6 apiece! sun penang is my new favourite lunch place! then we headed to the mall to get my birthstone ring cleaned and checked (it’s so sparkly now!). the chain for my amethyst pendant broke when i was in ireland, so he asked if the extended warranty still covered it, and it does. all i have to do is bring in the broken chain and they’ll fix it or replace it for free. which is a good thing considering the one she showed me cost roughly $100 — after taking 50% off for the sale they’re having this month. oh, jewelry!

we wandered around for a while until nick espied a verizon kiosk and started to look at phones. his has been acting up for quite some time and i’d already bought him a verizon gift card for his birthday (which is on wednesday!) — i couldn’t actually buy him a phone since that required signing the contract. he was asking all sorts of questions about the lower-end models and finally i said, “well, i should probably give this to you now!” and presented him with the gift card. he is now the proud owner of a motorola krzr that has a camera, music recording and downloading abilities, and Tetris. which apparently is the best thing about the phone. i just like that he’ll be able to talk to me now without his battery going dead (i guess this was partly a selfish gift!!)

then we stopped by a kiosk staffed by an israeli girl who was selling body scrubs made from dead sea minerals. she was hilarious! she let both of us exfoliate our hands with the one meant for your whole body, and used the facial scrub on the inside of my forearm. our hands were truly “supple” as nick said — no lotion required! i ended up buying the body scrub and i can’t wait to use it. we ended our mall experience as every mall experience should end: at the food court for milkshakes. it was just so good to hang out. this semester has been so busy for us both!

saturday wasn’t nearly over after that, but i don’t have time to tell you about it now because my shift’s about to start at shortstop. patience, my friends…i’ll be back!